Half-Term courses are a hit with youngsters

Half-term school holidays would not be the same for youngsters in Cardiff, without the hugely popular rugby coaching courses.

The first Cardiff Blues coaching course was staged at Canton RFC this week with almost a hundred children between the ages of 6-10 participating in the event.

Juniors were split into small groups to receive the benefit of many years of rugby playing experience from Capital Rugby coaches. They were joined by young Blues' stars Jonny Vaughton and Nick Macleod as well as World Cup winner Pieter Muller early on Monday morning to lead the course.

All kinds of different training activities were organised, from handling skills, passing and tackling exercises and running with the ball.

Development officer Gary Knowles said,

"Some of the children we have seen here and coached today are very young, but they are still keen to play and learn more about the game."

At half-time in the course, the children took the chance to ask the stars from Cardiff Blues questions and collect their autographs. However, they were just as keen to quench their thirst with bottles of water, kindly supplied by Brecon Carreg, and soak Bruiser, the Blues mascot!

"We hope the children have all enjoyed the course and we have been able to offer them some valuable rugby experience. I am sure we will be seeing a great deal more of one or two of them in the future," said Gary.

The young girls and boys' efforts were certainly rewarded; not only with the skills they learned, but they also each received a Black Horse certificate for completing the course, match tickets for the Cardiff Blues and a FREE voucher for a family day at David Lloyd Leisure.